The use of vinyl and other decorative plastic covering materials on automobile roof tops to enhance the aesthetic appearance thereof is well known and in widespread use. A large variety of different techniques have heretofore been proposed for installing such decorative covering materials in an effort to reduce cost and to further assure that the covering material after installation is adherent over substantially the entire surface of the panel and is devoid of any bubbles, wrinkles or other areas of poor fit or surface imperfections. A further problem associated with such prior art techniques has been the large number of man-hours required in preparing a vehicle for reception of a decorative roof covering, as well as the time and number of persons required for the installation of the cover and the trimming thereof along the periphery of the panel. Such techniques have also required a high degree of precaution to avoid damage or marring of other exterior surfaces of the automobile to avoid the cost and nuisance of subjecting the vehicle to spot repair or rework to correct such damage.
Typically, the process heretofore employed for applying decorative plastic covering materials such as vinyl to automobile roof tops has involved the cutting of a rectangular blank of the material of a size in excess of the area of the panel to be covered. In those instances in which it is known that a vehicle is to be equipped with a vinyl roof, the final finish coat of paint is omitted and the primed roof panel is coated with a pressure sensitive adhesive in a manner so as to avoid any air entrapment therein. This requires a complete masking of the adjacent body panels and windows to avoid the deposition of adhesive thereon which, in some instances, adversely reacts with the paint finish. The underside of the vinyl covering material is also coated with the pressure sensitive adhesive.
In order to avoid premature bonding of the covering material to the coated roof panel, slip sheets are normally interposed between the covering material and roof panel to enable a hand-positioning and location of the covering material, whereafter the slip sheets are withdrawn and the covering material is hand-smoothened and worked into an adherent and shape-conforming covering. Thereafter, the terminal edge portions of the covering material are trimmed, producing costly scrap, and finally the masking material and any oversprayed adhesive are cleaned from the adjoining uncovered surfaces of the vehicle.
It will be apparent from the foregoing that the process constitutes a costly and time-consuming operation and also has a tendency to cause possible damage to other sections of the vehicle. In accordance with the decorative covering material and method comprising the present invention, a prefabricated and stretched decorative covering material can be provided which can be simply applied and secured along its terminal edges to a vehicle panel and thereafter shrunk and bonded in the form of a smooth and taut covering without requiring any trimming thereby substantially reducing the quantity of scrap produced in the installation of such decorative materials.